ESSEX COUNTY, ONT. - The County of Essex in southwestern Ontario has declared a local emergency due to long - and increasing - waits for ambulances to offload patients at hospitals.
County officials say last Wednesday Essex-Windsor EMS was in code red status, in which only two ambulances are available, and then “quickly” into code black, when no ambulances are available, for about three hours as 26 ambulances were delayed at hospitals.
They say neighbouring ambulance services have historically relied on each other for support when one community has higher-than-normal call volumes, but that same day last week there were between zero and seven ambulances available to cover the region “from London to the Detroit River between lakes Erie and Huron.”
Offload delays have been worsening in many communities across the province, and the president of the Ontario Paramedic Association said this summer that they have gotten 12 times longer in the last year alone.
The County of Essex says the frequency and duration of offload delays has risen sharply since 2020, with ambulances idling outside emergency rooms waiting for the patient to be admitted for sometimes longer than 12 hours.
The Essex-Windsor EMS chief and county officials are calling on the province to create incentives for hospitals to meet 30-minute offload targets, require hospitals to triage patients brought in by paramedics as a first priority, and allow low-acuity patients to wait by themselves in the emergency room.
Earlier this year, the Ontario government issued a memo to emergency services, telling them to consider having paramedic crews tend to more than one patient at a time in ERs - known as “batching” patients - so that paramedics could return to service more quickly.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 17, 2022.
